1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the photovoltaic technology, and more specifically to a solar energy concentrating system based on reflection.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the development of society and technology, more and more energy is demanded. The traditional energy is mostly non-renewable energy which will be exhausted one day. In order to meet the demand of energy and protect environment, innovative energy technology emerges rapidly. As a kind of renewable energy, the application of photovoltaics is limited by low conversion efficiency and high cost. The photovoltaic concentrator system concentrates more light on photovoltaic panels which can improve the conversion efficiency and thus decrease the use of the solar cell materials to obtain the same amount of electricity. As a result, this system can potentially reduce the cost of power generation by photovoltaic panels.
According to the principle of light concentration, photovoltaic concentrator systems can be divided into reflection type concentrator and transmission type concentrator. Furthermore, the reflection type concentrator includes plane mirror reflection and curved mirror reflection while the transmission type concentrator includes Fresnel type concentrator and prism type concentrator.
Light collection efficiency is the most important parameter in a photovoltaic concentrator system. In order to reach high light collection efficiency, the system is required to concentrate more light, distribute light evenly on photovoltaic modules and make photovoltaic modules reflect less light. At present, photovoltaic concentrator systems usually use lens to homogenize the light and keep photovoltaic modules perpendicular to the light to reduce the reflection loss. So, expensive lens and complex light tracking systems are adopted to solve those problems, which are not ideal to cut the cost of a photovoltaic concentrator system.